Rocket Lab unveil their Rutherford rocket engine

The engine burns liquid oxygen and RP-1 (rocket grade kerosene) producing 4600lbf (20461N) of thrust and is fed by two electrically driven turbo pumps. The engine and its primary components are all 3D printed and it takes about 3 days to build up an engine.

Rutherford rocket engine ( credit: Rocket Lab)

Without going into too much more detail, I refer you to an article I helped write that goes over the announcement in a lot more detail, click here to read more.

In a future post, I will cover 3D printed rocket engines, as this manufacturing method becomes cheaper, more and more projects are starting to use it and is worthy of a decent write-up.